K.Mandla's blog of Linux experiences

Four tools I don’t use

I have no idea if these things work. None whatsoever. They might do what they claim and then again, they might spiral wildly out of control and create more problems than they’re worth. But knowing that they are available is the important part, and so today I give you four tools that you may or may not find useful.

The first is fbcmd, which was sent along a couple of weeks ago by John. If I understand it right, fbcmd gives you some control over a Facebook page, via the command line.

Of course, a screenshot here is a bit pointless, since I don’t have an account and can’t practically show you how it works. If you have an account and want to give it a try, please show us what it looks like in action.

Again, a lot of good the screenshot does since not only don’t I have an account, but my IP appears in Japan and so Pandora is technically inaccessible to me. But again, if you use it and it works, leave us a link and we will all bask in the amazing beauty of it. ;)

Along those same lines, this is shell.fm, an audio player designed specifically for music coming out of last.fm.

And that’s the obligatory pointless screenshot. I don’t know which one is better, Pandora or Last.fm, but it seems there is a tool available to you no matter which you prefer.

One more before I surrender to the pointlessness of taking screenshots of applications I can’t use … a Twitter update script.

That one is delightfully simplistic, being only a two-line cut-and-paste task, and needing only curl to get going. Everything should be that simple. But again, as you can see, it appears to be working, even if the Twitter staff is probably wondering what to do with the “update” I just sent them.

I think that’s probably enough, considering I’m doing all of nothing by mentioning console tools for things I don’t use, and showing pictures of them not working. In that sense this might be one of my least useful posts of all time. :roll:

P.S.: Don’t take my refusal to use those services as criticism (or endorsement) of them. I’ve mentioned Twitter in the past, and explained why it’s not interesting to me. As for Facebook, I am not comfortable with their privacy policy. It’s also extremely popular in my office — dare I say distracting — and as a general rule, I find my life to be better lived when I don’t do what everyone else is doing. ;)

Before I clicked the thumbnails I was certain that you were writing about windows apps. D’you mind linking the theme you’re using? Want to try out using the best windows theme ever on my ubuntu install. :)

Ravenheart: “Who is the bigger fool: The fool, or the one who argues with him?”

Well, I may be a bigger fool for arguing with you, but to point out what is tragically obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together and the good sense G-d gave a goose: Your criticism is in no way constructive. It is simply the whining of a person who feels entitled to be entertained by others, and who delights in harping on their perceived shortcomings while offering nothing of value in return. If that’s how you behave in real life, you are a sad individual indeed.

I’ve gotta say, “BRILLIANT!” There are so many worthless W-2.0 apps out there that it is tough to know which to avoid. They are worthless to me and apparently, to you as well.

There are people who thing they understand technology just because they have a facebook or myspace page and own an iphone. They are just cows being lead to eventual slaughter, not really, but those sites/companies aren’t giving these services away out of the goodness of their hearts. There is a catch, we just don’t know it yet.

I miss the days when FOSS software was used to create server software that folks could download and install on their own servers. None of this non-released, give us your email account, and well build a business model around subscribers crap.

Of course, I think that google is the worst offender, not for search, but for everything else. “Do no evil.” We’ll see.